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Sitemap More interesting items/ideas for a Bioshock Rapture MMORPG Part 30 --- --- --- --- --- -- During the early stages of BioShock 2, there was a giant squid boss that Delta was supposed to fight outside of Rapture. " Sounds good for a Mission/Quest (the bad guy gets away in the end though). Decent tentacle animations for once (Idea- reverse kinetics) ?? --- Children in New Rapture : Non-Splicers would not have acted the way Splicers did, and if they found enclaves of others who could get/produce supplies to live on and defend themselves, then survival of children was more likely. Degredations of living conditions would effect survival for all ages, but children are often more vulnurable. In Splicer controlled areas, most young children likely would not have survived simply from neglect, if not other more disturbing ways. Teenagers would be much more capable of survival, if they were old enough when the troubles started (and teen Splicers probably would/will act even more annoying when you run into them). Most game companies prefer not to have children in the line of fire, so this would be a touchy issue (note how the Little Sisters were invulnurable to damage -- except for the green-splashy obscured evisceration and removal of Mr Sluggy and 'termination'.) --- ADAM is just needed so to not lose ground (ADAM addiction). When ADAM wears off/metabolized (your body increasingly rejects the contamination) genetic degredation occurs and the targetted ability is nullified, More ADAM is needed to repair/stabalize the plasmids, else they cease no function. As time goes on, the body builds up resistance/immunity requiring more ADAM for the same effect/duration of effect. With larger quantities of ADAM, more accumulative randomization of genetic effects occur. Later developments produced more stable DNA codings and buffers to slow rejection/metabolization (this was after Fontaine, as he actually wanted his ADAM products to deteriorate to be able to sell more). Unfortunately their was no way to remove the ADAM modified tissues (until the Cure was developed) to eliminate the source of the genetic disruption. --- The Economy MUST go on ... : Players in the Real World stop playing for periods of time, but this game has several magnitudes more interactions between players and between player infrastructures. Yes, there are NPCs that keep operating in similar fashion to make things run, but players will have more imagination involved and enable a more 'alive' city environment. Players Avatars and 'Team' NPCs are to be able to operate on automatic, and this should be extended to longer time periods (not just short-term tasks). If a player has a business organized, part of it would be 'supply chain', which if not overridden would obtain needed materials for the business production and go on manufacturing and selling the product. With the player directly involved, there would be bonus efficiency and potential opportunities for bigger payouts, but the business should be able to lumber on automatically and continue interactions within the City community (your product passes on to other businesses as their materials or on to consumer players/NPCs). As mentioned before, much of this AI operation is behaviors that NPCs will already do as a base economy system and only need be extended to player's Avatar and Teams NPCs with a little more 'policy' direction for the automatic modes. Profits are generally more than enough to 'pay the rent' to prevent player's assets from eroding. The mechanism is sufficiently limited so that you wont come back to find that your AI-run minions have sold all your 'stuff'. You dont think this is possible?? How long has the 'SIMs' been around? Much of the behaviors are not that complex --- obtain items/materials XYZ, work on them with skills ABC, take the resulting goods to a buyer or your 'shop'/'stand' to sell to Players/NPCs. The Production Formula mechanism would already exist to guide various manufactures. The automatic 'shop' salesman and selling mechanism would be there for that operation. A generic 'clearinghouse' for mundane items and materials is part of the game (to simplify loot disposal). The control scripts would be one of the Asset types which Player Creators could expand upon (more sophisticated/specialized operations beyond the initial Company developed ones). --- 1 in 10 workers in Rapture may have had to be a farmer : There are virtually no farms like the majority of those on the surface (dirt farming), instead their would be hydroponic farming that has 3-5X the yeild per area. Large cross-section caverns/tunnels are expensive to build/seal. so most in Rapture would probably have to be something like a 10 foot wide bored tunnel (using the solid bedrock to act against the massive sea pressure). 1 acre (43560 sq ft) of 'farmland' would fit in such a tunnel about 2420 ft long (with 3 growing levels stacked, 3 ft wide on either side of an access way in the middle - 18 sq ft per linear length). Tunnels could be grouped side by side seperated by twice their width and at different levels approx every 30 feet (all to give the rocks sufficient supporting volume). Vegatables and grains could be grown multipler crops per year and the extraneous plant material useable for silage to feed milk cows/meat animals/fish. There is a huge amount of cheap power/heat available from Hssphaestus to keep the plants growing (grow-lights) all day long, all year round. Conversion of Carbon Dioxide to Oxygen would be a paying byproduct. By th 1960s 2% of the population in the US were farmers and thru land farming automations were able to each feed 50 other people. Hydroponic farming even though largely automated, still takes more labor for the same 'farm area' (the guy who fixes the machines is still classified as a 'farmer')... So a more realistic ratio (including things like fisheries) would be loser to 1 farming employee's work feeding himself and 9 other people. With a population of 20000 - 40000 initially , that would mean that Rapture and its supporting communities would need 2000-4000 farmers to feed the population. Those farmers would have to keep producing (even during the civil war and the following chaos) or very shortly there would be nothing to eat. Mythic_Themed_Names Simulated activities to present a 'busy' cityscape and operate a normal 'economy' : Players (as their on-line Avatars) are not present much of the time, but world activities go on (NPC AI keeps things happening). The Player sets up a business/fabrication task/supply chain (causing interacting with other NPCs to get needed materials). The Player's organization remains active, the NPCs operate visible to other players. Independant NPCs have their own 'lives' with roles/goals that require no intervention (built into their design/programming). Besides work, they eat, sleep, do recreational activities, consume commodities, reside in the City, etc... NPCs buy goods, NPC businesses continue selling or producing goods - simulating a real economy which the player interacts with (and doing jobs the player might not care to). A Player's Team NPCs do boring/repetitive tasks for the Player's game projects (so instead of the endless click-fest 'crafting' many MMORPGs have, the Players organize/manage their minions to do the tedious stuff). Offline management (handheld interfaces to 'play' the more mundane activities) allow monitoring and 'tweaking' activities even when sets of off-line tasks can be queued up. Players can thus spend most of their 3D gaming doing the more exciting/interesting exploring and exploiting in the wilder parts of the world. The AI for alot of this control is not that sophisticated program-wise (just a whole hell of alot better than the simplistic scripting we are afflicted with in most current games) and easily replicated/modified/varied for many different tasks/activities. Instead of a Player constantly ordering 'units' to do specific tasks, the NPCs have their own goals and a scheduling and prioritization system that has them choose their activities appropriately. Patterns of producing/transporting/consuming items or providing services are well known from normal life, and can be replicated in enough detail as a backdrop for a reasonably detailed game World. The normalcy of the New Rapture cityscape is in contrast to the violence and chaos of the rest of Rapture. - The Player Asset Creation mechanism allows incremental expansion/varying of the NPCs activites over time. Players can add new 'normal' behaviors to present a 'typical' city full of NPCs (when your typical MMORPG 'City' is a virtual Ghost Town full of mostly inert mannequins). An example would be City maintenance in the form of cleaning the streets (the City Center is meant to be a showcase of Civilization - what the city once was). NPCs (and possibly the player) are hired to pickup garbage in the streets. A new variation of this NPC activity would be designed using the game's creation tools (figure animation, sound effects, scripted NPC movements, tool props used, interactions with the environment, spawning patterns of 'garbage' in the terrain, garbage disposal, scheduled patterns employing this variation). Much of this is modifying a basic 'clean up' activity, but the variation will allow the NPCs to appear less repetative and keep them moving/acting in a logical way (fitting the location). Instead of pieces of garbage, it might be a puddle of chemicals that requires cleanup, or a boodstains, or graffiti. Added 'game quality' would be coordinating between 2 NPCs to do the activity (which is much more challenging programming-wise and also more interesting looking). Of course, ALL of this uses the same development effort/methods used to create the adversarial NPC behaviors, to have THEM do many different things/tactics, requiring the players to handle them in many different ways). Same for adding additional reactions to unusual circumstances (in the City or out in the wilds/ruins) - the more there are, the more real the game becomes (versus those limited MMORPGs where NPCs hardly react to anything and then only in a few boring ways). --- --- --- -- Needed - A Forklift (fond memories of Far Cry and GTA) : SO much potential (even better on a game engine that supports vehicles). Come to think of it, a turning Merry-Go-Round of death in Dionysus might have been good. A Trolley that ran (with a less rediculously short track length ) to have a moving gun battle would have been nice (Hey, now with the Infinite engine they can do stuff like that for Bioshock 3.) Forklifts are fun for a while stacking cargo (yet another 'mission'), but using them in combat is even more fun. Splicers chasing after you with one unexpectedly even better. --- --- --- -- City Evolution in Rapture : Unlike many real cities Rapture was largely built all at once and was planned with a cohesive design (evident from the utility and transportation grids that interconnect all the dispersed building clusters). Initially Rapture was a construction camp, housing workers and engineers who build the City infrastrcture. Then there was a massive wave of immigration as the City's population was brought and settled in and the economy was built and stabalized. There was more evolution as things learned in the early years brought modifications -- like better leak proofing or refined buildng techniques, and the Consolidation of the Metro to tie together newer areas not part of the initial plan (the Atlantic Express is more like a Subway system, when a city needs something more like a bus system). Later, after most of the City construction ended (1952), there was a growth of 'suburbs' outside the City which offered more living space to those who found the Cityscape too closed-in. Cheap construction techniques made significant Suburb expansion profitable, which changed city dynamics when people left the less savory parts of the City (tenement-like conditioned in low-end residences). Good transportation to the outlying areas also made this expansion possible (AE long distance 'commuter' Trains still ran after the conversion/abandomnent of most of the intra-city Atlantic Express passenger service). The 'cutting-off' of most of the links to the Surface World also brought changes that readjusted the City's economy, as did the early financial crisis (long before the Kashmir Incident). In the time of BS1 (1960) the City had become a warzone with Fontaine/Atlas's Splicers murdering people in the streets which forced Ryan to take significant security measures and to build his own army to stop the carnage. Ryan kept the economy alive and many of the outside communities isolated themselves from the strife. With Ryan's "death" the Chaos eroded the City further and the Faction Wars started which disrupted most of the remaining economy outside the organized powers, and further localized whatever was left. Murderous cults like Lamb's were isolated by the remaining powers when they preyed upon weaker neighbors. Now New Rapture (in the time of the MMORPG) is starting to grow and is set on restoring cohesion/civilization, as City territory is recovered and rehabilitated and isolated communities are linked back into a larger mutually advantageous community. A number of the larger, better organized factions have already joined New Rapture (most significant being the Neptune Fishermen and Ryan's loyalists in Hesphaestus). Future evolution will be the major expansion of order as New Rapture's citizens (the MMORPG players) expand into the 'ruins' and 'wilds' to rebuild the City. --- --- --- Curing Big Daddies : Bodies fused into their suits, massive tonic upgrades/enhancements, significant mental conditioning, major psychological baggage, parts of the brain may have been 'burned out' ... Many Splicers suffered similar damage to varying degrees, and reconstruction was found possible for them (or most of them) as part of the 'Cure' process (per the MMORPG plotline). The Big Daddy conversion was somewhat different as it employed more stable tonic-like ability/physical enhancement (temperature/pressure resistance, massive strength increase) instead of adding very significant plasmid-type tissue modification. The required reconstitution work may simply be a quantity problem for the physical repairs, but the mental restoration would be the more difficult part. Ith may require longterm mental reconstruction (when unlike for the experimental Delta/Johnny, extensive (neural)N-grams of the subject were not recorded/stored). It is thought that replacing destroyed mental patterns with those from another individual might be possible, but techniques to eliminate psycho-conflicts still need to be developed. Ex-Splicers are being trained as divers by the City to allow for increased maintenance and needed reconstruction. The limited availability of diving hardsuits is the main limitation. --- --- --- Storytelling Quests : Choreographed Flashbacks, check. Lots of interesting/imaginitive Lore related stories to tell, check. Creative players to build them and others interested in seeing them, check. Tools to create the Assets (will be there if this MMORPG is to work). A 'Story' Example would be : an elaboration of the whole 'Life-boat' story dealing with Sinclair and how/why it was built. There is a whole interesting story which we only got hints of (interactions between Ryan and Sinclair and big City doings). Of course, being highly related to existing Canon/Lore, it would have to jibe with the few existing 'facts' and all the newly created ones would have to fit properly into the rest of the City's story. The work would be a collaboration with the many details and an influencial subplot that would become new Canon (for later player creations to make use of and be built around). That 'Lifeboat' actually looks like it could have started as a possible replacement for the Lighthouse, so the developed story could encompass many big aspects like that. . . .